See the future by looking into your past

See the future by looking into your past.

If you were going to have a car accident, would you want to find ot where and when?

And if you did, would you do anything about it?

Would you avoid that road? Would you avoid driving at that time? Would you just have a day off and not risk it?

If you could find out your potential health issues in your future, would you do anything about them?

If there was evidence that those health issues could be prevented by making
simple changes to your diet or lifestyle, would you make them?

Science and technology is advancing at breakneck speed. The changes and breakthroughs in science and medicine are happening daily.

We are at the dawn of a new era in health, specifically preventative health. That phrase has been bandied around for decades. It’s a great concept, better than the current medical model, of wait and see what health problems you get and then do something about them. Unfortunately, often that’s too late.

100+ years ago we used to die mostly of communicable diseases and infections. Hygiene, antiseptics and antibiotics have reduced those to a minimum.

Most of the health problems we have to face now are a different breed. They are not brought on by infections, by lack of hygiene or poor living conditions. These diseases are brought on by lifestyle.

Type II diabetes, heart disease, dementia, cancer and the multitude of auto-immune diseases that plague us today in many ways are strongly linked to our lifestyle choices.

Whether we are talking about the pollution in our bodies from the multitude of chemicals, that didn’t even exist 100 years ago, that we find in our foods, our beauty products and the air we breathe. Or the foods that taste great but can be toxic long term, like those that contain high sugar, bad fats, preservatives, colours and sweeteners.

What about the sedentary life that we find ourselves more prone to as a result of computers, TV’s and cars?

Life has changed and so have the diseases that are common now.

The good news is that if lifestyle has contributed to the diseases we suffer from today then lifestyle can prevent them also.

Prevention is a great concept, but what specifically are we preventing? Preventing diabetes is very different from preventing macular degeneration. So how do we know where to direct our efforts?

That’s where medical breakthroughs enter the picture. We have a wonderful tool available to us for the first time in history. A tool that allows us to look into the very fabric of our being and isolate our strengths and weaknesses. That tool is DNA testing and the centre of our bodies, our genes!

It’s as simple as giving a saliva sample and sending it off to a lab. From the raw data we can find out the health problems that you are more likely to suffer from in the future and advise you on a course of action to avoid or at the very least, delay them.

Your genes don’t define your health outcomes, they are just one part. The other factors are diet, exercise, sleep and mental behaviours, to name but a few.

A common myth is that there is a gene for a disease, like for example, Alzheimer’s. That’s not true. A gene is a recipe. One gene is a recipe for one protein. Now if that protein helps prevent damage in your brain and you have a gene for a less effective protein, then you may have a higher risk for Alzheimer’s in the future, but it doesn’t mean you will get it.

If you know this then there are many other ways to prevent damage to your brain.

If you know your potential health issues you can do something about them before it’s too late. That’s why genetic testing and preventative health is the future of medicine.